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"Age is important here. For really good wine, odds are you're going to want to lay it down for quite a while."

What I was saying is age changes a wine and most people who are into wine prefer Bordeaux wines when they're older. Sure, some people prefer younger wines and some wines don't age well. I never meant to give the impression that there is a perfect age for any given wine. Of course it's all about personal preference, I was just giving some guidelines that often apply. I'm not denying that I was talking in generalizations, but I will deny that they were untrue.

Depends at what knowledge level your starting from.. I think a basic wine course can be a great start, how to taste a wine, what different grapes taste like etc.

If you can find a local wine merchant (not the snooty kind) that has a passion for wine and the people that work there are into wine, then great. These are the knife nuts of the wine world, if you call in and buy stuff a bit they will put you straight on whats great at a price etc. It helps if you can describe the kind of thing you like/don't like.

Personally I can't drink most chilean/ozzie stuff and fine it hugely over oaked, but malbec from argentina pretty decent. I find california crazy prices now, the south of france is making some great wines now with people being able to find vineyards for cheap enough and tearing up the rulebook of their AC and just labelling them Vin de pays.

i love love love wine but can't afford to get too into it. the route i've chosen is to stick to a few regions that produce very memorable wines for about 20 bucks. If you try to get a bordeaux for that price, it's gonna suck. My gf and i like the loire valley reds from france. cheap, young, often naturally produced and have a lot of character. not usually very refined stuff but almost always interesting. sometimes you get something a little too yeasty or immature but hey, it happens and it's never a huge loss at that price range. also you can get very decent german reislings in this price range.
think about it, if you go out for a nice dinner and buy a 60$ bottle, it's really just a 20$ bottle anyways

...the route i've chosen is to stick to a few regions that produce very memorable wines for about 20 bucks....My gf and i like the loire valley reds from france.

I think this is a good idea, and I would take it a step further. I like to change things up and every year or so I choose a new area that has good value, read up on it, learn about the good producers and then start buying wine. It keeps it interesting, and over time you really learn about wine. Next year I am going to focus on Portugal. The value coming out of Portugal right now is pretty amazing.

Btw, Loire is one of my absolute favorite regions. The variety of grapes and unique bottles that come out of that area is fabulous -- though I tend to favor Loire whites. Another great value region (for reds) is Côtes du Ventoux, but you don't find them as much in the US.